When I talked to Michael Fitzpatrick of Fitz and the Tantrums he mentioned he had produced a version of ‘Toxic’ by the Chapin Sisters, and I have just found it on youtube:
I remember seeing the Chapin Sisters opening for Harper Simon last year at the bootleg theater, and I was stunned how perfectly the three sisters could harmonize.
Their cover of the Britney Spears’ song is stripped down to the basics, discharged from its electronic arrangements and cleared up from its sexual load. It is so weird to recognize the melody while thinking it is a new song.
They reinvent the song with just an acoustic guitar and three voices, emphasizing the melody which was overlapped by so many other things in the original version.
It’s also slower and sadder, curiously much sadder. I had never realized it was such a beautiful song.